Teenager was chained to basement and sexually assaulted by her step-dad and step-brother for a year

In a horribly traumatic story, a 14-year-old girl has bravely confronted the men who kept her handcuffed in a basement on and off for a year, in court this week. The unnamed youngster was also allegedly sexually abused by the two men, who were her 53-year-old stepfather and his 28-year-old son, her step-brother.

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The young girl, who suffered the abuse at her family home in Ohio, USA, finally managed to escape the hands of her attackers in May last year after apparently enduing three years of sexual abuse as well as the year of being kept captive, reports theMail Online.

She somehow managed to undo the handcuffs and break free while the sinister pair were out the house, so she fled. The girl's mother had reportedly left in 2012 and never come back, leaving the youngster vulnerable to this kind of unthinkable exploitation. It's thought her mother now lives in Las Vegas.

When police came to investigate the scene, among other things they discovered leg irons and a bucket the victim had been forced to use as a toilet.

The father and son have now been charged with rape, kidnapping and child endangerment; with the step-father having been accused of raping another girl, too, according to WTOL. It's been reported that both men are pleading not guilty to the crimes and that they are representing themselves in court, using the Bible as their defence, referencing "strategy in Scripture" as the reason for their actions - whatever that means.

While she stood up in court to testify against her abusers, the teenager took comfort in the presence a therapy dog. And it evidently helped her to be brave, as she boldly told her step-father to stop referring to himself as any kind of father to her. "You didn't treat me like a dad," she told him in front of the court.

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